Legal Victory for P2P in France

nietsch writes "The Register is reporting that a french Kazaa user that had been sued by the SCPP (the french equivalent of the RIAA) has been acquitted by the courts in his county. 'The Judges decided that these acts of downloading and uploading qualified as private copying' Ars Technica has more coverage on the subject, or you can read it in english from the organization that lead the defense."

Comments

who knew?

[ajdowntown]

Who knew france would be the country to stick up for digital copy rights?

Re:who knew?

[Anonymous Coward]

Must explain the WWII stuff and all.

Like why France was the first country to declare war on the Nazis in Sept '39 while the US just sat on their hands?

Re:who knew?

[Spy der Mann]

Who knew france would be the country to stick up for digital copy rights?

Well, they opposed Bush in his "omg teh terroristz lets bomb iraq!" madness.

Re:who knew?

[Rosco P. Coltrane]

Must explain the WWII stuff and all.

It's funny how people always mention WW2 and the french Vichy Government, while completely ignoring the whole history of social and democratic progress.

The Vichy government was a mistake and a shame. But that doesn't erase the fact that Americans owe France their freedom, most of their constitution, and a pretty statue. Looking at thing from a different angle, America's image as bringers of freedom, fighters against tyranny, and lighthouse of the world for democracy was right at the end of WW2. Since then, it's been going downhill quite frankly. Yet nobody seems to blindly ignore America's more glorious past. So give France a rest, read up some of its history, and understand that every country can sometime slip.

Re:who knew?

[FidelCatsro]

The French did not Surrender , the French government did .
France had some of the best organised Resistance movements in the War .the D-Day landings would likely have been a lot harder had it not been for the French Resistance .

French Aristocracy and rulers have a habit of Bending over , The French People have a habit of Kicking them up the arse when they do .

Re:who knew?

[Rei]

Yeah, because good relations with Iraq was much more important than good relations with the US, which they traded with twenty times as much, and who would (explicitly admitted) have granted them reconstruction deals had they taken part in the invasion. What great logic there. Sure, it had absolutely nothing to do with three in four French citizens opposing the war. Heaven forbid a democracy listen to its population!

Re:who knew?

[mOdQuArK!]

Bah, France along with Germany and Russia opposed the war because it would interrupt their nice oil deals with Iraq.

The _companies_ of those countries might've opposed the war because of that.

The _citizens_ of those countries opposed it because they thought, like most of the world, that the Bush Administration was lying through their *ssholes about the necessity for going into Iraq.

Unfortunately, half of the U.S. public seems to be in a state of willful denial, otherwise he & his cronies would have been impeached and thrown into prison by now.

Re:who knew?

[db32]

Uhm before you get too excited about French aid in the American Revolution you should examine the motivating factors. They weren't exactly champions of freedom, they just really didn't like the British, and taking America away from the British would weaken them considerably. It was in their best interest for the revolutionaries to win that fight, but not wanting to get in the mix directly and make life a little more difficult, they just supported us. This is sorta the same way we supported various countries and "freedom fighters" against those evil commies. We wanted to communists weakend, but didn't want to risk a direct conflict, so we just help out the little guy who doesn't have much to lose by fighting.

Re:who knew?

[Kierthos]

You mean, after Moscow (which wasn't really the capital of Russia at the time; St. Petersburg was) had been stripped of pretty much all supplies by the Russians, and was possibly set on fire by the Russians so as not to provide shelter either? Oh, and let's not forget the asylum inmates that were turned out on the streets by the Russians.

It wasn't just the winter that did Napoleon's "Grand Army" in.

Kierthos

Early Days

[MCSEBear]

The music industry is very used to getting their way. They have plenty of money to give to politicians when they aren't giving it to radio stations in illegal pay for play schemes. Give them a while and they will bribe the bad news away...

Re:Early Days

[theJML]

"The music industry is very used to getting their way. They have plenty of money to give to politicians when they aren't giving it to radio stations in illegal pay for play schemes. Give them a while and they will bribe the bad news away..."

Because God Forbid the music industry actually gives any of that money to the people that write/play/record/produce/create the music that makes them an industry. I figure the artists should actually see some of the money instead of it being spent on lawsuits and red-tape.

I mean, that's like winning the $100M lottery and only getting $5 out of it because someone decided that they'd use the rest of the money to sue other people to make sure someone doesn't steal my $5.

I guess I just don't see how the RIAA isn't a wholy owned subsidiary of the Mafia.

Everyone's doing it

[camcorder]

Someone should have checked judges personal computers to understand merits of this verdict.

Re:Everyone's doing it

[ThousandStars]

Your statement is a classic case of logical fallacy called ad hominem tu quoque.(sic)

Your statement is a classic example of the logical fallacy no humorus tu assholio de Slashdot. In this fallacy, someone fails to get a joke and thus responds to an absurd or amusing post in a serious way. Moderators, such as the one who gave you +1 Insightful, also sometimes suffer from this malady.

I'd like to see a clear definition of...

[ursabear]

I'd like to see a clear definition of private copying.

At what point does retrieving a file from someone else's computer stop being private? I completely understand someone making copies of all kinds of things within their home. When someone I don't know is making copies of my files - this is when it seems to be anything but private. I'm not advocating a particular POV about copyrighted materials here... I'm thinking in terms of the moment that a file ceases to be "my" file and becomes "someone else's file."

Transcript of court proceedings

[Rosco P. Coltrane]

SCPP:
        Go and tell your master that we have been charged by God with a sacred quest. If he will give us money for the MP3s, he can join us in our quest for the Holy Racketeering Scheme.
FRENCH JUDGE:
        Well, I'll ask him, but I don't think he'll be very keen. Uh, MP3s are free you see...
SCPP:
        What?
RIAA:
        He says MP3s are free!
SCPP:
        Are you sure they're free?
FRENCH JUDGE:
        Oh, yes. They're very nice-a. (I told him MP3s are free.)
POLICEMEN:
        [chuckling]
SCPP:
        Well, u-- um, can we come up and have a look at your MP3 collection?
FRENCH JUDGE:
        Of course not! You are English types-a!
SCPP:
        Well, what are you, then?
FRENCH JUDGE:
        I'm French! Why do think I have this outrageous accent?!
RIAA:
        What are you doing in England?
FRENCH JUDGE:
        Mind your own business!

Re:Not Sure If I Agree

[kiracatgirl]

It means private as in non-commercial, not as in kept hidden from the rest of the world.

Re:Not Sure If I Agree

[Yvanhoe]

This is old news.
The act of downloading is considered fair game but the act of uploading without the correct licence is still illegal.
you also have to know that in France there is a "tax on the private copy". When you buy a blank CD or DVD, you pay a tax that goes directly in the SCPP's pocket. The judge recognized that by burning most of the downloaded stuff, this particular person was in fact paying for his stuff and denied his responsability.

BTW, isn't it a last year news ?

On a side note, French parliament is currently examining a law that would legalize a "P2P fee", legalizing 100% of P2P downloadable stuff. Its chances to pass are thin, but there is currently a heated debate (most politician think about the 2007 presidential elections)

TFA...

[nordelius]

... would be worth a look. This should be seen in context with a French initiative to tax access to P2P networks.

What they seem to be looking at is accepting that people are going to use P2P networks anyway, and look at implementing some kind of revenue model to ensure that music publishers don't get so antsy in france that they sue dead people who have never used a computer.

"But," I hear you cry, "what's to stop me using Brand X esoteric open source P2P software?". Well, if you are using and not paying, you are now committing an offence against the state.

Which makes it a damn sight easier to get your arse put in prison.

Cunning.

Uh. Not quite.

[torstenvl]

The title is misleading. Maybe "Legal Victory for a P2P user in France" would be better.

France uses the "civil law" system (as opposed to the "common law" system used in the U.S., the U.K., and the Commonwealth, past and present). It's based on the Roman corpus iuris civilis, and it doesn't have any such thing as "precedent." Each and every case is decided purely on the facts of the case, the law as written, and the judge's... erm... well... judgment.

This doesn't mean P2P is legal in France. It means someone got away with it.

Re:Uh. Not quite.

[ant-1]

We do have precedent. It's called "jurisprudence", and although a judge is not legally bound to apply the same judgment twice for two similar cases, it is was is done in the courts.
And when the judge deviates (because the precedent is obsolete for example), he better have good reasonning wrapped around its verdict, because higher courts will break the judgment if not.

Social Networks + P2P?

[aralin]

This made me thinking about joining a social network like Orkut with music sharing and share your music only with your friends and maybe friends of friends. That could get around some legal hurdles in more countries and while you don't get this way any music you want, you still get quite a lot new music and actually improve the relationships with your friends through listening to some of the same music as them.

Re:France surrenders to the War on P2P

[ThinWhiteDuke]

I would have thought, in this specific occurrence, that it is the US who surrendered to big business.

But I'm just French. And not even Republican. What do I know about spinning news?

Re:That's a pretty shaky defense

[ThePhilips]

...placing a stack of burned DVDs...

FYI, CD-R/DVD+/-R/RWs are taxed in Europe, as insisted by artists. IOW, if you have downloaded MP3s or movies and burned them on CD/DVD - you are clear, since you are already compensated artists thru recordable medium tax. (And every CD/DVD burner is taxed too.)

And to cool off your hot (in legal sense) American heads, I have to remind that European legal system is NOT precedent-based. IOW, one case over here means nothing. Judge decides the case after looking into the circumstances of the case before him, not by searching prehistoric records of how Gutenberg/etc were judged.

What can you tell from the case, is overall mood over here. People in Europe are sick of taxes. And another association asking for another compensation and protection against competition is just what it is - another association asking for another compensation and another protection against competition. And artist associations here are far from being first in the queue of the beggars, looking for gov't help.

What is illegal here putting such CD-R pile for a sale. But I think it's illegal everywhere. As long as you give it away for free - you are Okay.

They are changing the law now

[antonallan]

This latest verdict is probably in line with the current French legislation. But since France is a member of EU, they will eventually have to implement the EU Copyright Directive (EUCD). The French parlament are in fact discussing this, the proposed french law is called "Droit d'Auteur et aux Droits Voisins dans la Société de l'Information" (DADVSI), and though opposition is tough it will certainly come to life soon, as all EU directives must in all member states.

Then P2P networks and the use of them, even to share innocent files, will be illegal. This law will also affect Open Source software development, so it might matter more than you think.

You can help the French community by signing a petition here:

http://eucd.info/index.php?English-readers

So does this mean ..

[bizitch]

... we can route all our P2P traffic via proxy/router thru France in order to be immune from prosecution/lawsuits? - sweet!

As they say in french

[varkman]

pwnez

Re:Private Copying

[Kjella]

Probably, but private has many meanings. private 4 c) Conducted and supported primarily by individuals or groups not affiliated with governmental agencies or corporations: a private college; a private sanatorium. In that context private P2P is correct even if it is open to everyone.